Rail project saving $140M on power-line clearance

By Marcel Honoré mhonore@staradvertiser.com

Posted on February 17, 2017 12:05 am
Updated on February 17, 2017 at 11:32 am

Local rail officials and Hawaiian Electric Co. say they’ve agreed to a cheaper fix for many of the utility-line clearance problems that have plagued Oahu’s elevated transit project, saving about $140 million.
Read More

By participating in online discussions you acknowledge that you have agreed to the TERMS OF SERVICE. An insightful discussion of ideas and viewpoints is encouraged, but comments must be civil and in good taste, with no personal attacks. Because only subscribers are allowed to comment, we have your personal information and are able to contact you. If your comments are inappropriate, you may be banned from posting. To report comments that you believe do not follow our guidelines, email commentfeedback@staradvertiser.com.

Like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, this thing is going down and taking Honolulu taxpayers with it, and Caldwell is an accomplice to the crime of sticking Oahu taxpayers to the biggest black hole any public has ever been dumb enough to bend over for.

Is this possibly an attempt to show the feds they are serious about saving money? Are the feds that dumb to accept this kind of paper savings when we all know this thing will go to 15 billion in the next 6 months if allowed to continue. The mayor touts his affordable housing but this is all just a mass development scheme designed to fill the pockets of the elite political class here that are never voted out of office. Who ever thought bringing 50 thousand more residents to Oahu was a good thing?

Lets not forget the faulty Trains that have already been delivered and built with bad welds on the main Beams that hold the cars together. Now they have to re-build all 27 cars + the one they delivered to Honolulu as a showcase 7 years before the first choo choo choo’s. So now we have Steel tendons that hold the tracks on the guide way snapping, 265000 plastic shims that need to be changed because they cracked in the sun, cement that is crumbling on the columns where they connect to the guide way, columns that are sinking into the soft farmland requiring more shims to hold the guide way in place. still now ideas as to where the electricity to run this MONSTER is coming from or how?? from 2.6 Billion and 36 miles to
10 Billion and almost 11 miles of track but no stations or LOW COST HOUSING HAS BEEN BUILT. Less than 500 local jobs were created instead of over 10,000. 75% of the workers were brought in from the mainland
areas of Texas, Florida and Washington state’s, the local businesses that suffered have not been offered anything other than BYE BYE future from the city. We have been lied to in every instance and now they want a BLANK CHECK BOOK TO COMPLETE THIS MONSTER BOONDOGGLE– WAKE UP HONOLULU AND SAY ” NO”

I can probably name 40-50 just on the main corridor of Dillingham Blvd. from restaurants, wholesale, retail, service, etc. etc. etc. Most are individual owners who’s only means of support is the business.
Like the Waipahu area most have been there successfully for 20-30 years and like in Waipahu the RAIL will destroy them.

Anyone remember Mufi’s 2.7 billion dollar rail budget with a generous contingency, and factored in rising material and labor costs, as well as inflation? Now we’re a about 9.6 billion and the mayor says “Just round it up to 10 billion” as if 400 million is a drop in the bucket.

Dillingham Boulevard? Really? Why is this even mentioned when rail will end at Middle Street Bus Terminal?

Power lines are just one of the problems on Dillingham Boulevard as underground utilities must be moved along with the wires. This would result in shutting down a major road for years, effective gridlock on the other streets.

No money was saved with the new trucks as taxpayers are still stuck with the bill. Just a con game, find the peanut under one of the three cups.

140 million dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to the entire cost estimate. Now if they can find another 3 billion in savings that would be worth reporting. Here’s an idea, let’s tax mayor Caldwells car a million dollars per pound for it’s registration that would cover the rail overages.

No disrespect to Marcel, but this reads like the SA once again published a press release from HART as “news.”

If that’s not the case, did you happen to ask HART and HE where the electricity would come from to power the train, who would be paying for the infrastructure and how much it would cost?

As for “Rail leaders, including Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell, are asking state lawmakers for another rail-tax extension to rescue the transit project.” My understanding is the Mayor Caldwell isn’t asking for a extension, he his asking to make the promised “temporary” rail tax permanent. Has that changed?

Thursday’s utility plan represents a rare instance of good budget news for the island’s cash-strapped project, which has seen its projected cost nearly double from $5.26 billion in 2014 to about $10 billion today.

Really, GOOD NEWS ? this joke of a project started at 2.7 Billion, so the cost has TRIPLED. With NO final price ?

Finally a little sanity on this project. The 50-foot clearance requirement never made sense as the standard in many mainland cities is only 20 feet. This was all about who would have to pay for the new equipment HECO needs to handle the narrower clearances and should have been resolve much sooner, but at least we got to the right answer a the end.

The reality is this is a little tiny drop in the bucket and will probably end up costing another BILLION as it gets closer to actually putting in the guide way. I feel for the businesses on the corridor along Dillingham as they completely killed many if not most of the local business in Waipahu as they destroyed the customer base. Duh, they still haven’t even started on the Waipahu transit station RAIL STATION and Nan Inc says the earliest would be late 2019 & that would only be if everything goes perfect. You would think that station would be priority because its a major BUS Transit Center so that means phase one is still years away if ever. WAKE UP HONOLULU AND STOP THIS MONEY SUCKING MONSTER IN ITS TRACKS.

My major concern is: are we receiving money in our bank from Fed funding on this rail project? With President Trump, although no one in Hawaii is talking about this, we may never get any funding from the administration. If we are getting money, how much have we received so far. And how much more will be available?

They will likely have to return whatever they got as the FEDs are growing angrier by the day with the delays, cost overruns and mismanagement of their money to HART. Frankly even the FEDs are under the impression that the rail will never be built so they want their money back.

“The roughly $140 million that HART expects to save from its utility-relocation budget will go into rail’s contingency fund, Morioka added.”

Uh, what contingency fund? You mean the $1b fund for the $3B rail system to UH Mufi promised us. With project costs currently projected to be around $10b, Hawaii is in the red and borrowing money or raising taxes to finish the project. It would be extremely upsetting after the GET tax extension, debt servicing and money that is being diverted to rail if the $1b contingency fund is still intact. Actually, thinking about it, it makes perfect sense for the way the project has been run so far…

Little do you know you little Libtard that the rail will never be completed in our lifetime. It’s a scam to siphon money out of the taxpayers as it won’t ever pass a safety inspection as it’s already buckling under it’s own weight! Keep pushing your devout “D”onkey Libtard Utopian propaganda and you’ll see that your hood, Nanakuli, will get taxed to the point where you’ll be forced to move out to the Waianae boat harbor camp with the bums!

Hawaii being conned again by Hart and SA.
Cheaper Fix? Paying for new equipment and storage area for HECO to be used where ugly rail stands. Ugly rail once constructed might stand forever. Forever costs for new equipment and storage will surely run well over $200 million.

Hart spends 60 million for equipment, puts savings 140 million in contingency and spends it all on rail.
Future and forever costs for new equipment and storage will be at Taxpayers surprise expense of well more than 200 million.

Run the rail from Middle Street to Sand Island, then to downtown with a bridge or tunnel. I bet you could even run it at grade. No problems with the Dillingham corridor. No bones because it’s all fill. You could add extra bus lines down Dillingham with some of the money saved.

Keep drinking the cool-aid, wiliki! Can’t wait to see you boarding the choo-choo on stumps after the medical staff persuades you to saw off your legs due to lack of funds at the public hospital as a result of funds being prioritized for the rail instead of insulin supplies!

wiliki says: “This should be blamed on frivolous court suits which have delayed rail…”

How many times are you going to re-tell this lie?

The then Mayor and rail insiders were making a forceful push to get rail started and beyond the point of no return. They tried a shady legal end run around the requirement for a archeological EIS to be completed before starting work. The City was sued by The Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation on behalf of cultural practitioner Paulette Kaleikini. She has and had no relation with Ben Cayetano, Randall Roth, or Charles Djou.

The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled UNANIMOUSLY that the city had erred and ordered them to stop work until an archeological EIS was completed. They did, it was, and Paulette Kaleikini was satisfied.

To characterize a rare unanimous decision regarding Native Hawaiian rights by the Hawaii Supreme Court as “trivial” is the height of disrespectful and condescending.

Remember, if you can’t support the rail project without resorting to lies, then you can’t support the rail project.

This story was a banner headline in the SA as if it’s a major breakthrough. Why doesn’t the SA ever cover the real headline, the major “forever tax” burden our lawmakers are going to mandate on our small number of Hawaii’s tax payers?

It’s true that you can fool most of the people all of the time. Oahu had an opportunity to vote Caldwell out but their brain cells were not holding hands so they voted him back in. Oahu voters….gluttons for punishment.